Crypto card platforms have defied the broader sluggish trading environment to post all‑time activity highs, with data from Paymentscan showing that weekly top‑ups reached a record $245 million in the final week of June. Cumulative spending has now surpassed $10 billion, reinforcing the sector’s position as one of the strongest product‑market fits in crypto.
Ten native crypto‑native projects recorded peak usage and transaction volumes in June, and the momentum carried into early July, with five projects setting new weekly records. According to analyst Daniel on Twitter, those five — EtherFi, RedotPay, Phantom, KAST, and EXA — generated roughly $228.1 million in volume, accounting for about 92.9% of all volume tracked on the platform.
The surge is underpinned by two structural trends: the mass adoption of stablecoins and the ongoing convergence between decentralized finance and traditional fintech applications. On the network side, the largest inflows are concentrated on TRON and BNB Chain, while spending predominantly originates from cards built on Optimism, Base, and Arbitrum. The recent decision by Revolut to drop support for USDT has further boosted crypto card usage in regions outside the eurozone, where access to that stablecoin remains critical.
However, the boom comes with caveats. Some of the elevated activity is driven by aggressive point‑farming campaigns and the promise of future airdrops, which analysts warn could distort true adoption metrics once incentives fade. Ana Gabriela Ojeda Caracas, head of Blend Money, cautioned that not all crypto neobanks will survive the next 18 months, as heightened activity raises compliance demands — especially the need for real‑time sanctions screening rather than batch processing.
Custody standards also remain a weak point. The case of KAST, a leading card issuer on Solana, highlights the problem: user deposits are treated as exchange transactions, giving the issuer effective control over funds. In contrast, self‑custodial cards keep funds in user‑controlled wallets that cannot be unilaterally frozen, though the industry still lacks a unified approach to ownership and terms of service.
